Salmon is part of British Columbia's identity

Alongside lush, green forests that grow all the way to the water's edge, Cermaq Canada works in cooperation with nature and local First Nation communities to grow Atlantic salmon on the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Home to black bears, cougars and elk on land, and killer whales out to sea, we grow our salmon in one of the world's most diverse natural ecosystems.

Quality

To produce the highest quality, natural salmon, Cermaq Canada has a strong focus on genetic integrity. We choose fish that grow quickly and are best suited to our farming conditions to become the broodstock that will produce the next generation of our salmon. We keep close track of all our salmon's genetic roots, traceable by DNA.

Cermaq Canada's proximity to the United States means that it can take as little as 24 hours for our salmon to go from our farm to your plate.

Farming practices

Before the salmon are released into their seawater pens, they spend fourteen months in fresh water in our land-based hatcheries, which mimic the creek beds where wild salmon lay their eggs. There, our hatchery workers constantly monitor the eggs, removing all but the best to become the smolt that will be transported to our seawater pens.

The locations of our seawater farm sites are carefully selected to give our fish the best environment in which to grow. The pens have predator nets to protect the salmon, and although we grow up to half a million fish at a time, our pens are kept at low capacity – around 3% – allowing the fish to school and swim at various speeds.

Our highly trained and skilled employees take responsibility for all aspects of life on the site, including feeding, measuring and weighing the fish, testing and reporting on water quality and sea lice counts, performing quality controls and administrative work. Underwater cameras give us information about how the salmon are feeding so we can adjust the feed to suit their appetite.

More than half of our production takes place on Clayoquot Sound, in the territory of the Ahousaht First Nation, with which we have a protocol agreement. Many of our farmers, who live and work on site, are members of the Ahousaht First Nation.